Make me to understand the way of thy precepts, and I will meditate upon thy wondrous works.
This prayer follows a confession. In verse 26 the writer laid his own ways open before God; here he asks God for understanding of another way, and says he will then dwell on God's wondrous works.
This request is one step in a sequence that runs through the whole Daleth section. One writer traces the movement from the writer's own conduct to a settled choice:
Desiring God's way the soul prays to be delivered from man's way — the way of lying. He has confessed his way (v. 26), learned God's way (v. 27), refused man's way (v. 29), and chosen God's way (v. 30) — the way of truth.
So the prayer for understanding is not a stray wish for information. It stands between an honest confession and a firm refusal of man's way.
Verse 26 asks to be taught. This verse asks for something more. One writer marks the difference:
In verse 26 the Psalmist asks to be "taught" because he knows he is ignorant. He lacks experience of many things. Now he asks: "Make me understand … ". To be taught is not enough. We must also grasp and understand what we have been taught. Otherwise our knowledge is only theory. We can have an intellectual grasp of the Bible, and have knowledge, and still lack the wisdom that comes from experience — the wisdom to pass that knowledge on to others.
If understanding could be earned by study alone, the prayer would be unnecessary. One writer locates the real obstacle somewhere other than the mind:
This is the secret of true understanding. People do not understand the word because they have brighter minds than others, but because they have a more obedient heart. The single-hearted desire to do the will of God is what secures understanding of His word. And it is the Spirit of God who produces both. It is the will that darkens the understanding. When grace makes us want to do His will, God does not hold back His light.
The prayer asks for "the way" of the precepts — where they take a person. One writer finds the wondrous works along that path, then turns it on the reader:
But he longs to know more of His statutes, and the whole way in which His precepts lead. He is sure that there he will find the wondrous works of God to meditate on. What glories can be seen in the path God has marked out! If an Israelite could say this, how much more can we! We dull the prospect by unbelief. We shut ourselves out of it by choosing our own path, and shut ourselves in to the dull, ordinary lives we so often live. This is because we want it so, not because God wants it.
Older translations read "talk of Your wondrous works" where the ESV has "meditate." One writer follows that older reading and draws a line from what we take in to what we can say:
To be able to "talk of Your wondrous works", we must first have taken in and digested the truths of God's Word. Too many assume they are teachers because they have some Bible knowledge. But there is something lacking in their talk, their teaching. Before what I say to others can grip them, it must first have gripped me.
- Confess the way. The prayer starts where verse 26 left off — with his own ways laid open before God, not hidden.
- Learn the way. Teaching is only half of it. Knowledge stays theory until God gives the understanding to grasp it.
- Want the way. Understanding comes from an obedient heart, not from a brighter mind. It is the will that darkens the understanding.
- Walk the way. He asks for the way the precepts lead. That path is where the wondrous works of God are found. A path we pick ourselves shuts us out of them.
- Talk of the way. Only truth that has gripped us will grip anyone else. We must digest the wondrous works before we can speak of them.
My soul melteth for sadness strengthen me according to thy word.
Here a man's inner strength has drained away, and he asks God to give it back. Two practical questions follow: what makes a soul melt, and why does he tie the cure to God's word?
The verse does not stand alone. It follows a request to be taught God's way. The order matters. The psalmist has already opened his life to God before he asks for strength.
Having confessed his own ways, the psalmist wants to be taught God's way and God's wondrous works. In that way he finds relief from his felt weakness by God's strength.
Notice what he does not do with the pressure he is under. Earlier in the same section he shows the pattern:
With the power of evil pressing upon his spirit, the godly man looks only to the Lord for relief. He does not seek to find relief by escaping from the pressure. He seeks God in the pressure, praying that God would raise his drooping spirits according to the comfort of the word.
The image is of something solid losing its shape. One writer reads it as weakness that has grown past what a person can carry.
"My soul melts from heaviness" (v. 28), that is, the burden of his weakness is so great that it becomes overpowering. Where will he find strength but in the Word of God?
Commentators trace this heaviness to a particular habit of the heart. The problem is not always the trial itself, but where our attention lands while we are in it.
There is nothing more disheartening and discouraging than to be occupied with oneself. Our spirits will begin to wilt and droop. Something has happened to us, and we wonder: "Why me?" We cannot understand why the Lord has allowed this. We begin to sulk. We become depressed and burdened with heaviness. In Romans chapter seven the personal pronouns I, me, myself, appear 47 times. I ask you, with whom is the man in that chapter occupied? The capital letter "I" appears 28 times! There is your answer. He is occupied with "self".
The second half of the verse is not a vague plea for a lift. It names both the measure and the guarantee of the help.
The soul, though the dweller in a dust-formed body, clings to the dust only because it is fallen. Out of the awareness of this, the psalmist cries for the power of God to energize it according to the gracious promises of the Word. He has laid bare before God his whole practical condition, and knows that He has answered him. … "My soul melts for heaviness," he cries; but then there is pledged strength to meet him.
(An older translation renders the second half "make me to arise.")
The psalmist's low state is not treated as failure. Commentators find real value in a heart that feels its own weakness and still looks only to God.
The heart took the low and humbled place, with no courage about outward things. It also melted within for heaviness. Inside, it was in felt weakness. Still the strength it looks for is according to God's word. It seeks nothing but this. … Through this it was downcast. But it is better to be downcast through evil than to walk cheerfully in it. More energetic faith might lift up. Still the sense of evil and dependence is good.
This verse gives a prayer we can use, not just a record of someone else's low day.
Let us then follow the Psalmist in his prayer: "strengthen me according to your word". Occupation with Christ, with the word of Christ, will get us out of our depressions!
And the section does not end in heaviness. Relief leads on to movement:
He has confessed his way (v. 26), learned God's way (v. 27), refused man's way (v. 29), and chosen God's way (v. 30) — the way of truth. … And being 'enlarged,' or 'set free' from heaviness, he wants to run the way of the Lord's commandments with new energy.
- Cause — Self-occupation drains us. Spirits wilt and droop when the question becomes "Why me?"
- Confession — The cry for strength comes after he lays his whole condition bare before God.
- Cry — He does not ask to escape the pressure; he seeks God inside it.
- Measure — "According to Your word" leans the prayer on pledged strength, not on a vague wish.
- Result — Set free from heaviness, the soul stops melting and starts running.